Forensic Science

Chronology of Coverage

Mar. 20, 2015

Retesting of DNA samples positively identifies Matthew David Yarnell, 26-year-old employee of Fiduciary Trust Company International, as victim of Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center; he is 1,640th victim positively identified. MORE

Feb. 24, 2015

Scientists are developing tools that allow investigators to create facial image of suspect using DNA found at crime scene; process, known as forensic DNA phenotyping, has raised concerns among some who question technology's accuracy or warn that it could increase racial profiling or lead to privacy violations. MORE

Feb. 10, 2015

Profile of Dr Barbara Sampson, New York City's first female chief medical examiner, who is seeking to establish department as a leader in state-of-the-art research; Sampson's efforts come as department seeks to right itself following series of high-profile errors. MORE

Jan. 21, 2015

New York City medical examiner's office and New York Academy of Art offer weeklong workshop in which students learn to reconstruct faces of unidentified corpses based on skeletons and sometimes other small clues; sculptures could help identify victims or even find killers in homicide cases. MORE

Nov. 13, 2014

Manhattan District Atty Cyrus R Vance Jr announces program under which $35 million in civil forfeiture assets will be used to help other cities and states tackle massive backlog of untested rape kits; Vance asserts that effort would likely lead to indictments far beyond the communities that receive aid. MORE

Oct. 15, 2014

Editorial deplores high number of untested rape kits languishing in police department storage facilities; says backlog and widespread absence of requirements for tracking kits represents colossal law enforcement failure to seek justice for rape victims and to protect the public’s safety; urges Congress to finish work on appropriations bill containing $41 million for federal program dedicated solely to processing untested rape kits. MORE

Sep. 16, 2014

Eddie Lee Howard Jr, who was convicted of murdering 84-year-old woman Georgia Kemp in Mississippi two decades ago largely because of what many experts call a far-fetched match of his teeth to purported bite wounds, is appealing his conviction; claims that bite-mark identifications are unreliable. MORE

Aug. 3, 2014

Memphis is joining cities like Detroit and Cleveland with its aggressive new effort to test all new rape kits as well as those awaiting testing in storage; issue of untested rape kits has been exploding as city after city has discovered stockpiles of untested kits; initial testing of old kits in Detroit and Cleveland has yielded hundreds of indictments and revealed scores of repeat offenders. MORE

Jul. 24, 2014

Forensic experts say they expect crash victims of Malaysia Airlines disaster in Ukraine to undergo routine examinations, even if crash itself was anything but; DNA testing and other techniques are to be used to identify dead and determine cause of death; testing could shed light on what exactly happened to jetliner after it was hit by surface-to-air missile. MORE

Jun. 29, 2014

Editorial supports Pres Obama's proposal to aid communities in their efforts to reduce rape kit backlog in police labs; holds failure of law enforcement to process evidence linked to sexual assaults, with kits awaiting analysis likely well over 100,000, shows contempt for victims, public safety and justice. MORE

May. 17, 2014

Clyde Snow, legendary detective of forensic anthropology, esoteric science of extracting secrets of the dead from skeletal remains, dies at age 86; his sleuthing uncovered atrocities across the globe, and used forensic anthropology in human rights cases. MORE

Mar. 20, 2014

Center of Science and Industry exhibit The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes features more than 125 years of lore about the famous literary detective and his scientific method of crime-solving. MORE

Mar. 5, 2014

Report conducted by Massachusetts inspector general Glenn A Cunha finds that chemist Annie Dookhan, who may have compromised tens of thousands of criminal cases, was the 'sole bad actor' at drug lab where she worked; takes lab's management to task for lapses that created atmosphere enabling her actions. MORE

Feb. 4, 2014

Florida state crime laboratory employee resigns during investigation into missing drug evidence that authorities say could compromise hundreds of cases. MORE

Sep. 17, 2013

Researchers have until recently thought that it was rare for cells in single healthy person to differ genetically in a significant way, but scientists are discovering that it is quite common for an individual to have multiple genomes; discovery could have significant impact on medicine and forensics. MORE

Aug. 20, 2013

Study to be published in September issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics reports that computer scientists have developed software that can reliably detect fake or altered photos by using algorithms designed to expose suspicious shadows; technique could be used in emerging field of photo forensics. MORE

Jul. 25, 2013

Op-Ed article by Prof Osagie K Obasogie warns of very real injustices that can occur when too much faith is placed in DNA forensic technologies; contends for too long the myth of DNA infallibility has been allowed to chip away at skepticism of government's prosecutorial power. MORE

Jun. 11, 2013

Defense lawyers in Colorado say many criminal cases are in doubt after investigators hired by state found problems including bias against defendants, inadequate training and flawed evidence handling at state toxicology laboratory in Denver. MORE

Jun. 5, 2013

Neil Genzlinger article notes how Supreme Court decision to allow police to swab suspects for DNA testing has made some tried-and-true television plot devices obsolete. MORE

May. 29, 2013

Afghan pathologists face steep challenge in identifying remains of men last seen being detained by American Special Forces A Team in Nerkh district in Wardak Province, owing to lack of sophisticated forensic equipment and badly decomposed state of remains; Nerkh incident, which many Afghans see an act of torture, has severely strained relations between Afghan government and United States military. MORE

Apr. 25, 2013

Justice Dept issues new national guidelines for forensic medical examinations in cases of sexual assault; recommendations emphasize that victim's physical and emotional needs should take precedence over criminal justice considerations. MORE

Apr. 3, 2013

Louis C Taylor is released from prison 42 years after being convicted of arson in Arizona hotel fire that claimed 29 lives; several cases like Taylor's are being re-examined as scientists debunk techniques that have long been used to determine proof of arson. MORE

Feb. 27, 2013

Supreme Court justices wrangle over whether police may take DNA samples from people they arrest, as Justice Samuel A Alito Jr reflects on just how momentous the issue is; such evidence will help police solve crimes, but it also raises privacy issues. MORE

Feb. 6, 2013

Dr Charles S Hirsch, New York City's chief medical examiner since 1989, resigns for reasons of health and age; he and his colleagues developed what has become nation's largest DNA laboratory to help identify victims of September 11 attacks. MORE

Feb. 1, 2013

New York City medical examiner's office says it has discovered more than 50 cases in which it failed to upload critical DNA evidence samples from crime scenes to the state's DNA database, preventing samples from being compared to genetic material of convicted offenders; discovery has led to firing of office's deputy director of quality assurance and suspension of Dr Mechthild Prinz, director of forensic biology department. MORE

Jan. 28, 2013

Investigators have used partial match DNA to locate criminals in more than two dozen cases in New York City, but law enforcement officials say they know of no cases solved because of a lead generated by the technique that was quietly introduced in 2009. MORE

Jan. 21, 2013

Editorial supports Senate bill that would reduce backlog of rape test kits languishing in police custody by redirecting money toward processing of kits; faults delayed testing of kits as intolerable failure of criminal justice and calls upon House to approve measure. MORE

Jan. 8, 2013

Multiple lawsuits in Mississippi claim that Dr Steven T Hayne's testimony as forensic pathologist in state trials between 1980s and late 2000s led to scores of wrongful convictions; accuse him of misrepresenting his qualifications and proposing theories that lie far outside standard forensic science. MORE

Dec. 16, 2012

Forensic Statistical Tool, software program created at the New York City medical examiner's office, can analyze mixture of DNA from a crime scene and determine probability that it could include defendant’s profile; tool, invented by Drs Theresa A Caragine and Adele A Mitchell, is being challenged in court but both scientists are confident they will prevail. MORE

Nov. 13, 2012

Florida detectives, working with forensic experts at the University of South Florida's Tampa Bay Cold Case Project, use isotope analysis, process of analyzing chemical traces in physical evidence, and other modern techniques to uncover the background of a murder victim known as Jane Doe in 41-year-old cold case. MORE

Oct. 16, 2012

Ciudad Juarez Journal; Dr Alejandro Hernandez Cardenas, forensic odontologist who works in forensic lab in Ciudad Juarez, Mex, has attained kind of star status in the city for rehydration technique he developed, which can restore clues to the identities and deaths of decomposed bodies of people killed in ongoing drug war, and hopefully lead to murder convictions. MORE

Sep. 29, 2012

Annie Dookhan, chemist accused of falsifying drug test results, forging paperwork and mixing up samples at Boston's Hinton State Laboratory Institute, is arrested in a scandal that has thrown thousands of Massachusetts criminal cases into doubt. MORE

Aug. 29, 2012

New York City Police Dept must ensure that certain protocols are followed when collecting DNA evidence left by suspects in interrogation rooms; some detectives say that all the rules, which include scrubbing the interview room with bleach and water solution, have discouraged many from using the tactic at all. MORE

Aug. 9, 2012

New York City medical examiner's office is undertaking an ambitious effort to identify the nameless dead in the city's potter's fields, seeking to capitalize on the expertise that it has gained over the last decade identifying remains from the World Trade Center attack; office is conducting a systematic review of old cases, in which autopsy samples are still available, as well as opening graves that hold unidentified bodies. MORE

Jul. 31, 2012

Chief Justice John G Roberts Jr rules that law enforcement officials in Maryland may continue to collect DNA samples from people charged with violent felonies while the Supreme Court considers whether to hear an appeal on the constitutionality of the practice. MORE

Jul. 31, 2012

Forensic anthropologists publish study in journal PLoS One on discovery that an Incan girl who lived 500 years ago, and who was mummified after undergoing human sacrifice, was suffering from a chronic respiratory infection. MORE

Jul. 7, 2012

Saturday Profile of Philippe Charlier, France’s most famous forensic sleuth; a medical doctor and anthropologist, he investigates the illnesses and deaths of the rich and powerful who made French history; his dream is to gain access to the mass grave of the remains of France’s royals, which were taken from their marble tombs in the basement of the St-Denis basilica and preserved in a single vault that has remained sealed since 1817. MORE

Jun. 19, 2012

Supreme Court rules that allowing expert testimony linking defendants to crimes based on lab reports that had not been admitted into evidence does not violate the Sixth Amendment's confrontation clause; decision, in which no rationale commanded a majority, appears to signal the court's retreat from a groundbreaking decision in 2009 that only allowed crime lab reports in criminal trials if the analyst provided live testimony. MORE

Jun. 19, 2012

Editorial criticizes the Supreme Court's decision to retreat from a 2009 ruling that crime lab reports cannot be used against criminal defendants unless the analysts responsible for them are subject to cross-examination; contends that new ruling limits the protections of the Sixth Amendment's confrontation clause and will sow confusion about how such reports can be used. MORE

Jun. 10, 2012

Fingerprinting was pioneered in 1892 in Argentina, and up until 2004 was widely considered to be an infallible tool for forensic scientists; even though fingerprinting has been shown to be flawed, as a metaphor it is still stamped into the popular imagination. MORE

Apr. 15, 2012

Forensic experts, analyzing indentations in the paper, helped recover the work of a blind British woman who did not know she had begun writing a novel with a pen that had run dry. MORE

Dec. 7, 2011

Issue of how prosecutors may use criminal laboratory reports at a trial makes its third appearance before the Supreme Court since a groundbreaking 2009 ruling that such reports may not be used in criminal trials unless the analysts that create them provide live testimony; question currently before justices is whether expert witnesses could offer opinions linking defendants to crimes based on lab reports that have not been admitted into evidence. MORE

Dec. 2, 2011

Op-Ed article by Stanford University law Prof Jeffrey L Fisher notes that the Supreme Court will consider whether the Sixth Amendment's confrontation clause, which gives the accused in a criminal case the right to confront witnesses who testify against him, applies to forensic analysts; argues that forensic analyst should have to defend their reports in court. MORE

Nov. 27, 2011

Lake County, Ill, state's attorney's office is coming under increased scrutiny for what defense lawyers and law professors suspect is an alarming number of wrongful convictions; DNA evidence has found that many of the people who were prosecuted by the office and convicted were in all likelihood innocent, but the office has consistently found creative explanations for how the DNA evidence merely changes the scenario of the crime, not the culpability of the convict. MORE

Nov. 13, 2011

Family members of September 11 victims at World Trade Center endure renewed grief as they receive unpredictable and heart-rending notifications that new remains of their loved ones have been identified; New York City medical examiner's office continues to labor decade after tragedy to link nearly 22,000 remains with the 2,747 people killed at pulverized site. MORE

Nov. 8, 2011

Bradley Adams, chief forensic anthropologist in the New York City medical examiner’s office, inspects the remains of a severed limb in a yard in Rosedale, Queens, that he determines to be most likely belonging to a bear; mix-up is so common that lectures and textbooks devoted to forensic anthropology often touch on the similar appearance of bear paws and human feet. MORE

Aug. 30, 2011

Scientists in London are attempting to sequence the genome of bacterium that caused Black Death from samples gathered from skeletons in 14th-century graveyard; team's findings are reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. MORE

{"type":"article","show_header_text":false,"header":"ARTICLES ABOUT FORENSIC SCIENCE","query":"(des=\"Forensic Science\" or des=\"Forensic Medicine\") and tom!=\"Caption\" and tom!=\"Correction\" and tom!=\"List\" and tom!=\"Paid Death Notice\" and dsk!=\"Society\"","search_query":"(subject:\"Forensic Science\" OR subject:\"Forensic Medicine\") AND -type_of_material:\"Caption\" AND -type_of_material:\"Correction\" AND -type_of_material:\"List\" AND -type_of_material:\"Paid Death Notice\" AND -news_desk:\"Society\"","num_search_articles":"15","show_summary":true,"show_byline":true,"show_pub_date":true,"hide_thumbnails":false,"show_kicker":false,"show_title":false,"show_related_topics":true,"show_rad_links":true,"show_subtopics":true,"exclude_topics":"FORENSIC SCIENCE;FORENSIC MEDICINE","more_on_header":"MORE ON FORENSIC SCIENCE AND:","alternate_index_subidx":"","show_thumbnails":true}

Egypt’s Medical Forensics Authority on Tuesday dismissed its spokesman after he said last week that a poet and activist killed by police birdshot had died from her wounds only because she was too thin.